How To Add Freelance Work To Resume?

There are a number of different kinds of career experience that you might add to your resume to make you a more qualified and viable candidate for a position that you are applying for. One of these is freelance work. Though many talented employees in various industries and positions work in a freelance or consultant manner in some point in their career; depending on how you report this information will determine whether employers see you in a negative or positive manner. Below, we offer tips on how to avoid looking like you were unemployed and more like a professional in business for him/herself.

Name the BusinessIf you had a freelance business in whatever your enterprise is, you may have had a business name-even just for tax purposes. If so, make sure to include the name of your business, as this looks less like you are filling in an employment gap with a supposed freelance enterprise that may or may not have existed. Moreover, if you have any proof of this business-such as an online website or the like, include a link to the business website, so that employers can see more about what you did in that enterprise and that it was in fact, a professional entity.

Include DetailsNext, make sure to include details about your business in bulleted points. So, name your business, your career, and the purpose of the business. Under that, include details about everything you did to start the business, and to ensure that it made profit from month to month. This means talking about the specific services or products that you offered in the time that you were working as a consultant.

Include ReferencesAnother great way to offer a foundation for the business that you created under the pretense of freelance and/or consultant, is to offer professional references or accolades from previous clients that you worked for. In this section, you should offer the full name of the client, the duration of the project, a brief overview of the project, and their contact information. If you can get a quoted reference from them about your work and/or business, make sure to include a 1-2 sentence reference in your resume for added benefit.

Explain When NecessaryMoreover, make sure that if any aspects of your business look somewhat inconsistent with a solid freelance or consultant business; that you explain them either in your resume or your cover letter. So, if your resume shows that it took awhile to get clients, explain what setbacks you had-that might have been common start up problems that other companies necessarily have. Also, know that the switch from company to freelance back to company again will probably be a huge question for a company reviewing your qualifications; and thus, if you have a clear and suitable answer for why you made these choices, that you allude to this in either your resume and/ or cover letter, so as to avoid discrimination based on an inconsistency in your employment history.

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